The Bible is right. Somewhere... somehow... something went seriously wrong. We lost our way and fell short of what we were created to be. The result? The pain of shame.

None of us are perfect, yet... we long for perfection. When we miss the mark, it feels bad. For some, it's a fleeting twinge of pain that comes on occasion. For other's, it's a stabbing pain that stalks them daily.

That's shame.

The Pain of Shame makes you feel defective.

Someone described shame to me once as feeling like "damaged goods"... like you are a dropped product in a store and so you get removed from the shelf and tossed in the back, waiting to be thrown out. You've lost your value. And because of that you have this overriding sense of not belonging, not fitting in.

The Pain of Shame means living in fear of exposure.

YOU know that you are defective but the game of life is to keep other people from knowing it. It's bad enough to BE flawed, but it's doubly bad to have the world gawking at your flaws, either shaking their head in derision or laughing at your futility. Shame drives you to stay one step ahead of being exposed.

The Pain of Shame means living in fear of rejection.

If you are convinced that you are flawed and don't fit in, then it's only natural to fear the rejection that follows exposure. Who wants to associate with a loser?

It's no wonder that shames causes so much pain.

The Pain of Shame comes from the lies we believe.

It's the lies of shame that cause us to leap from the idea of "I failed" to "I’m a failure" or from "I’m flawed"to "I’m worthless". Where there are no lies there is no shame.

To escape this pain of shame we must find a source outside of ourselves that defines our worth. If we return to the God that created us we'll find that he's not there to condemn us but give us the value that he always intended for us to have. That's where healing begins.

Question: What causes you the pain of shame?

Learn more about the pain of shame and how God can heal it in Healing the Hurts of Your Past.

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